Tanzania October – November 2012 – West Usambara´s (Irente Biodiversity Reserve)

This site is not a particularly necessary site for birders and thus never visited by any birding crews, but it turned out to be a good place to spend two days to unwind, for we did not had the money to do the Magamba Sawmill road again. The food at Irente Farm (The place to stay or camp out here, info@irentebiodiversity.org) is exceptionally good and completely homemade. We ate the best bread and cheese of entire Africa here. The birding turned out to be pretty productive as well as I managed to see close to 100 species within just two days, including: Wahlberg´s Eagle, Little Sparrowhawk, African Wood Owl, Sulphur-breasted Bush-shrike, Black-fronted Bush-shrike, Eurasian Golden Oriole, African Golden Weaver, Green-backed Twinspot and Cabanis´ Bunting. The farm is also a surprisingly good place for Honeyguides and Honeybirds, for the owner tends to bait them with his own homemade bee wax. We observed Lesser Honeyguide here very well and saw another unidentified small Honeybird briefly.

Juvenile Green-backed Twinspot (Mandingoa nitidula)

African Wood Owl (Strix woodfordii)

There is also a viewpoint in the vicinity called Irente View Point, which offers a spectacular view of the savannah (or Masai Plain as they call it here), and which is also a good site for Brown Snake Eagle, Lanner Falcon and White-naped Raven. Besides several unidentified large bats (see pictures. Comments are most welcome), we recorded a Small-eared Galago here. There is also an old record of Serval near the farm, so keep your eyes open in early mornings! Other animals of interest include Usambara Soft-horned and Usambara Double-horned Chameleon.

Unidentified frugivorous bat

Usambara Two-horned Chameleon (Kinyongia multituberculata) (picture taken by Anna van der Kaaden)